Various devices for supporting an article have heretofore been proposed. Those of which applicant is aware are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,888,452 issued to Anderson on 10 Jun. 1975; 4,074,882 issued to Anderson on 21 Feb. 1978; 4,397,438 issued to Chapman on 9 Aug. 1983; 4,825,590 issued to Cullianne on 2 May 1989; 3,918,670 issued to Doherty on 11 Nov. 1975; 4,083,457 issued to Dromboski on 11 Apr. 1978; 4,431,154 issued to Hamm on 14 Feb. 1984; 4,422,610 issued to Hunt on 27 Dec. 1983; 4,133,509 issued to Kalbow et al. on 9 Jan. 1979; 4,418,496 issued to Koistenen on 6 Dec. 1983, 4,059,248 issued to Kuntz on 22 Nov. 1977; 4,098,483 issued to Pesola et al. on 4 Jul. 1978; 4,666,115 issued to Schiro on 19 May 1987; 3,978,612 issued to Young on 7 Sep. 1976, 3,907,118 issued on 23 Sep. 1975; 3,998,332 issued 21 Dec. 1976; 2,512,417 issued to Cook on 20 Jun. 1950; 1,077,027 issued to Austin on 28 October 1913; 4,809,941 issued to Sheridan on 7 Mar. 1989; 2,774,562 issued to Henry on 18 Dec. 1956, 3,532,318 issued to Lloyd on 6 Oct. 1970; 857,820 issued to Mosher on 26 Jun. 1907; 2,049,593 issued to Schabinger on 4 Aug. 1936; 365,555 issued to Tolman on 28 Jun. 1887; and 313,667 issued to Hesser on 10 Mar. 1885.
Of the above-cited references, the applicant considers the Cook, Austin, and Sheridan patents the most relevant to the patentability of the present invention. Cook allows a basketball rim to be mounted on the top or a face of a door. The device disclosed in Cook: (a) would be more expensive to produce than the present invention and (b) would not effectively suspend a bracket from a longitudinally extending member having its narrow sides vertically arranged and its wide sides horizontally arranged. The Austin patent requires that screws be screwed into the structural member from which a bracket is suspended. The present invention does not require any such permanent modification to the longitudinally extending member. The Sheridan patent requires that the longitudinally extending member have one free end around which the bracket is placed. Once the free end is fixed to another member, the bracket may not be removed from the longitudinally extending member.